This week we start with a quote not from a
genealogist but from a mathematician.

"A great discovery solves a great problem but there is a grain of
discovery in the solution of any problem. Your problem may be modest;
but if it challenges your curiosity and brings into play your inventive
facilities, and you solve it by your own means, you may experience the
tension and enjoy the triumph of discovery."
—George Polya

Sounds like genealogy, doesn't it? While Polya was a mathematician, he
is better known for his problem solving approach than anything else.
And isn't genealogy problem solving? In fact, each genealogist has his
or her own problem to solve.

Polya reasoned that there were four steps to the problem solving
process:

Understanding the Problem

Devising a Plan

Carrying out the Plan

Looking back

Personally, I think understanding the problem completely is the most
important part of the process. One excellent way to understand any
problem better is to organize the information we already have. This
week we look at a partial list of ways to organize genealogical
information. Our discussion is not meant to be comprehensive, but
rather our intent is to illustrate some ways genealogical facts can be
put together, all the while hoping to notice something we did not
notice before. Some of these techniques are old standards in "genealogy
land" and some are not.

Family Group Charts
A family group chart contains basic genealogical information on one
couple and their children and is undoubtedly one of the most popular
genealogical forms used today. The form provides a research framework
for searching the entire family, which is an excellent genealogical
strategy. Blank copies of these charts are also excellent to pass
around at the family reunion for relatives to complete. A downloadable
family group chart is available at the Ancestry.com site at: www.ancestry.com/save/charts/familysheet.htm
Most genealogists started out with family group charts, and these
charts continue to serve an excellent purpose throughout our research.

Pedigree Charts
This chart typically outlines four or more generations of one person's
ancestry, listing at least the parents, grandparents, and
great-grandparents, and is another very popular form. Often the purpose
of this chart is to provide a skeleton of one person's ancestry. A
downloadable pedigree chart is available at: www.ancestry.com/save/charts/ancchart.htm.

Discrepancy Charts
This is one of my favorite types of charts, probably because I have so
many confusing ancestors. This chart organizes conflicting dates or
places for one specific event in a person's life. My great-grandmother
was supposedly born in five different places and charting this
information made it easier for me to keep track of what record provided
what place of birth. I find it helpful to list all various dates for an
event along with where that specific information was obtained and who
was the likely informant on that record. This summary helps me to
compare all the information and determine as best I can which date or
location is most likely to be correct. An article discussing
discrepancy charts and two specific examples can be viewed at: www.genealogy.com/37_neill.html.

Acquaintance Sheets
For certain time periods and areas, tracking an ancestor's
acquaintances is an important part of the research process. Have you
ever encountered the name of a witness on a relative's document and
been sure that you have seen that name somewhere else before? Tracking
the individuals who were somehow involved in your ancestor's life may
help you determine where the ancestor was from, to whom he was related,
or where he later went. Deeds, wills, bonds, and other records
frequently have names of other individuals as witnesses, neighbors, or
bondsmen. If the same names appear with your ancestor in Kentucky and
in Virginia, there may be a relatively strong connection. A sample of
an acquaintance sheet is viewable here: www.rootdig.com/acquaintance.html.

Chronologies
Working an ancestor out from birth to death (including everything in
between) is an excellent way to organize information and notice gaps
and oversights in your research. Regular readers of the "Ancestry Daily
News" are familiar with this approach as several of us have written
about it before, largely because we know that chronologies are an
extremely valuable genealogical tool and can be used in several
different situations.

Geographic Organization
Maps are essential to family history research. Mapping out all those
locations in an ancestor's life may help you to see geographic areas
that have been overlooked in your research. It may also help you to
gain a better perspective on an ancestor's life. Maps organize
information geographically; this is something that cannot always be
done easily with only text. Things that appear inconsistent may not
appear as inconsistent when viewed on a map. The different places of
birth for my great-grandmother are in four towns in three states.
However when viewed on a map all these locations are in close proximity
to each other and are not as different as they appear on the surface. A
picture truly is worth a thousand words. And a map may prevent you from
wasting many hours of research time.

Let Your Software Do the Work
One of my favorite things to do with my genealogical software package
is to have it give me a listing of all the individuals in my database
who match a certain criteria. I do more with this than just see who is
born on the same day as I am. These kinds of reports are especially
useful when preparing for research trips or using certain records. Can
your software print out a list of everyone in your database born in a
certain village, sorted by date of birth? Many programs do, and such
reports are especially helpful when using records that are organized
chronologically. I insert extra lines between each entry on the report
and have a custom-made research log for use at the research facility.
This saves me time and helps me to look for everyone in the record that
I want. It sure beats flipping through hundreds of family group charts
to see who was born in which village. There's an example of a sorted
list at: www.rootdig.com/focuslist.html

Other Techniques?
There are other organizational techniques that researchers can also
employ. Reorganizing information can help us to notice gaps and
inconsistencies in our research—and hopefully make us aware of clues we
have overlooked. Think about the number of ways a child can "arrange"
five building blocks. Putting the five single blocks in a horizontal
row or a in a vertical column does not change each individual block and
yet the appearance of the configuration is different. There are many
other stacking arrangements that can be made without changing each
block. Think of your data as blocks that can be stacked or organized in
different ways. What you see depends upon how you organize what you
have. Just remember, that one big pile on your desk usually does not
count!

Copyright 2003, MyFamily.com. Michael
John Neill, is the Course I Coordinator at the Genealogical Institute
of Mid America (GIMA) held annually in Springfield, Illinois, and is
also on the faculty of Carl Sandburg College in Galesburg, Illinois.
Michael is the Web columnist for the FGS FORUM and is on the editorial
board of the Illinois State Genealogical Society Quarterly. He conducts
seminars and lectures on a wide variety of genealogical and computer
topics and contributes to several genealogical publications, including Ancestry
and Genealogical Computing. You can email him at: mjnrootdig@myfamily.com or
visit his website at: www.rootdig.com/,
but he regrets that he is unable to assist with personal research.